


Reasons Why Steve Says We Can't Get A Dog

by EmilliaGryphon



Series: Guardians of the Galaxy One Shots [18]
Category: Bucky Barnes - Fandom, Captain America, Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), MCU, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Steve Rogers - Fandom, Stucky - Fandom, gotg
Genre: Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Implied Relationship, M/M, Sillyness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-04-05 07:17:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14039019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmilliaGryphon/pseuds/EmilliaGryphon
Summary: One day Bucky brings home a raccoon and asks Steve if he can keep it. A happy birthday fic for my good friend! Disclaimer: This is my first attempt at Stucky!





	Reasons Why Steve Says We Can't Get A Dog

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Skarabrae_stone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skarabrae_stone/gifts).



Steve was reading when the door-bell rang. That’s odd, Bucky usually never rings…he thought, since it was really only Bucky who would be coming home. He wasn’t expecting any visitors. Sighing he put his book down, and crossed over the living room of their small one-bedroom Brooklyn apartment. He reached for the knob, turned it and….

“What….the…?” Steve’s jaw hung open at a loss for words as Bucky stood before him, grinning like a child. In his arms he held, a raccoon. And not a very happy looking one. 

“Can I keep it?” 

“It’s a raccoon,” was all Steve could state as he continued to take it in. There were red scratch marks all along his boyfriend’s arms. 

“It’s…”

“I’m…”

“not a raccoon!” Bucky and the creature finished simultaneously, both of them looking quite offended. Steve gaped, 

“Bucky, what are you talking about? That’s a raccoon.” The animal glared out from the dark circles surrounding it’s eyes, it’s ring tail lashing.

“It’s a long story,” Bucky said, stepping into the apartment as Steve was forced to back away, he shut the door quickly. “I found it rummaging through the trash, it had this around its neck,” with careful hands, Bucky reached for a small silver army looking dog tag that hung from the animal’s neck.

“Hey! Don’t!” Steve’s min continued to whirl, a talking raccoon? It talks?! Steve took the tag in his hand, frowning.

“89P13, is that a serial number?” He held back a shocked gasp as a small black paw swiped the tag back from him. 

“The names Rocket.” 

“Rocket?” The raccoon glared. Steve only looked to Bucky for clarification, but his good friend only nodded. 

“He says his name is Rocket.” Bucky confirmed, putting Rocket down. 

“Bucky, you’re not actually suggesting…” but one look at those large hopeful eyes and Steve already knew this was going to be a losing battle. 

“Steve please? He’s lost, he’s all alone. He’s got no one and he’s been hurt too.” Steve scrutinized the raccoon, who was somehow walking upright, beginning to inspect their couch and coffee table. It’s back was shaved, and Steve’s frowned only deepened as he saw four metal bolts inserted into its back, an odd sort of metal panel grafted in the middle of its upper vertebrae. “Steve,” Bucky’s voice was that gruff whisper he knew all too well. “Steve…. he’s the way I was before…” he swallowed. Steve only touched his boyfriend’s remaining arm. It made his stomach turn. The way I was before…before Steve found him. Before he took him back here to heal, before he was able to recover and before the rest of their friends, Natasha, Tony, Clint, Sam, Peggy and rest had come to trust him. Before, when he was the Winter Solider. “Please, he’s got no one else. Neither did I. But you found me, saved me. And I…I’ll never be able to repay that,”

“You don’t have to,” Steve protested in earnest. Bucky smiled sadly, 

“I know. But if I can help someone else the way you helped me….” Steve sighed, 

“Alright. But…your responsible for it.” All of a sudden, he ducked as something metal sailed across the room. 

“Hey! Ken Doll! I ain’t an ‘it’ a’right? The names Rocket! And I ain’t a flarking raccoon!” Steve only looked at Bucky, the man grinned. Grumpy like I was too. 

\----

It took time for Steve and adjust to their new pet, or new roommate as Bucky insisted they refer to Rocket whenever the strange animal was around. He took apart everything to Steve’s increasing irritation. The cabinets, the TV, the stereo, on the third night Steve awoke to shattering and clamoring in the kitchen. 

“It’s your turn,” Bucky sing-song told him, all too chipper for the wee morning hour. Steve rubbed his eyes, trying to pull himself from the fog of sleep. He turned over to the clock, “2:06AM.” 

“Bucky, he’s like a cat. He destroys everything, we can’t control him, and he hates us.” 

“He’s not a cat!” Bucky defended, as usual. “He’s just adjusting.” With a groan, Steve pulled himself out of bed and stumbled down the hall, wincing as something painful stabbed his foot. 

“What the…” he bit back a curse, 

“Watch your step, that’s a proto type landmine. Your lucky I didn’t get a chance to install the thermos detectors.” Rocket waved off casually. 

“A…a landmine?!” Steve stammered, “you built a land-mine? Out of what?!”

“Your kitchen walls have plenty of wires and the glass in the bathroom has just the amount of thickness to be inserted into the…” 

“Wait, stop, stop, stop. You can’t be tearing apart this house and making land mines!” Rocket turned from sitting in the hallway, pots and pans, coper piping and cutlery surrounding him in a chaotic spread that made the hallway unsurpassable. 

“What about guns?”

“No.”

“Bombs?”

“God no!” Steve cried. “Just stop, alright?” He growled, trying to hold back his impatience. Rocket stood,

“Don’t get your panties in a knot humie, I upgraded your shower and your TV.”

“Dare I ask what upgraded means?” Steve ventured. Rocket smiled deviously.

“You’ll find out.”

“Alright,” the human rubbed his hand across his face, too tired to argue. “I’m going back to bed, just don’t destroy anything. Why don’t you go back to your own bed,” he waved to the small circular cushion in the living room. 

“That’s a dog bed I ain’t sleeping in that.” 

“Well your not sleeping with us,” Steve growled. 

“Why not, you think you’ll get rabies?” 

“I’m not taking my chances.” With that he turned back towards his and Bucky’s room, shutting the door and hoping that the whole complex wouldn’t explode. 

\---

“Get down from there!” Steve begged, half-delirious clutching his coffee mug and staring up atop the fridge. 

“Just let him,” Bucky mused, pouring himself more cereal. Rocket had climbed on top of the fridge, ears pinned back and hissed at the estranged avenger. 

“Rocket, get down from there!” 

“I don’t take order from humans!” The strange creature shouted, Bucky was content to watch the back and forth, laughing as he ate. 

“Rocket this is our kitchen, you can have the living room but we eat here! You can’t make such a mess!”

“Kitchen’s already a mess,” Bucky put in mildly. 

“Your taking his side now?” Steven demanded, Bucky only shrugged. 

“Rocket c’mon, let’s go look for your friend.” At that, the creature’s ears perked up and Steve watched in amazement as the he jumped from the fridge to land on Bucky’s shoulders. 

“He has a friend?!” Steve cried, he could only imagine and frankly he didn’t want to. Bucky nodded,

“He says his name is Groot, he lost track of him the same day I found him here. Once he gets Groot, he’ll be off.” Steve was forced to watch as they took off, but he smiled as the door shut behind them. He hadn’t seen Bucky this happy since…well he couldn’t really remember the last time. Just another mystery he’d never solve about his old pal James Barnes, but then again, maybe that’s what Steve found so attractive about him. He thought he knew everything, until he didn’t. But that smile, that laughter. It was a rare occasion he got to see and hear it. But when Bucky cracked a joke, when they lay together in bed just talking, it made all that pain and darkness worth it. For both of them. They were each broken yes, but they made each other a little more whole. He tried his best to clean the place while they were gone, picking through Rocket’s gadgets and dismantling half-created weapons, one of which caused the smoke alarm to go off. 

\---

“We found him!” Bucky and Rocket barged in an hour later, Steve looked down from the ladder on which he stood, trying to unhook some odd black thing that Rocket had hooked to the ceiling. 

“Found who?”

“Groot!” Rocket and Bucky answered simultaneously. 

“I am Groot!” Steve jumped down, looking at Bucky who made an adorable slightly apologetic smile. 

“He’s cute,” Steve eyed the little tree that Rocket held in his paws. The little stick wiggled in it’s pot. 

“I am Groot!” 

“I know!” Steve found himself laughing. 

“That’s the only thing he says,” Rocket informed him, for once the air of arrogance was absent from his voice. 

“He looks kinda droopy,” Bucky pointed out, crossing over to the kitchen.

“Bucky…what are you….?” He returned with a watering can, and before Steve could protest the man bent over the plant, 

“Hold still little guy!” Water doused the little potted plant, and Rocket, and the entire carpet.

“Bucky!” Steve exclaimed. 

“What?” He demanded innocently, “he needed water!” 

\---

Rocket and Groot stayed with Bucky and Steve for four more days, according to the raccoonoid he was “working on,” a way to get them back into space. Finally, the day came. 

“Well, it’s been nice,” Rocket announced, wiping his paws on the couch and reaching for where Groot’s pot sat on the living room table, newly repaired. 

“I’m sorry to see you guys go,” Steve answered. Rocket glared, 

“You don’t mean that humie.” 

“No really,” he admitted, coming down and sitting as close to the raccoonoid as he dared. “You’ve made Bucky really happy. Don’t know why, but for that I’m grateful.” Rocket considered for a minute, finally he nodded. 

“Well, he helped me out too.” Steve cocked his head, wondering. 

“Guess it’s time to get you packed up,” Bucky cut in, coming down the hall. Rocket jumped down from the couch and they went about helping Rocket gather his various things together, things being nothing more than Groot and the two guns he had made partially out of table legs. 

“I’m gonna miss having you around,” Bucky said as he, Groot, Rocket and Steve climbed up the stairs of the apartment, all the way to the roof. Rocket shrugged, 

“Yeah well we’ll be back I’m sure. Groot likes it here.” 

“I am Groot!” Steve laughed, opening the door to the rooftop and stopped, once again he stared at shock at the small spaceship which now sat on some unfortunate resident’s garden bed.

“Did you make that out of a trash can?” He inquired. Rocket nodded, crossing over to the thing and opening the crude door. It was only big enough for him and Groot. 

“Bucky helped,” the raccoonoid admitted, flicking a switch. Bucky beamed as the small rocket thrusters ignited. 

“I’ll see you around Rocket,” Bucky said, giving a salute. Rocket nodded wordlessly as Groot pressed his little hands to the glass, smiling. They exchanged a few minor farewells, but Bucky wasn’t really one for goodbyes. Steve wished the aliens luck and they watched as the small ship puttered, hovered, spat and took off, up and up into the sky eventually disappearing. Steve grinned upward, going over and putting an arm around Bucky. 

“I think you did it.”

“Did what?” 

“Helped him, the way I helped you.” Bucky turned to look at Steve, with something unreadable in those brown eyes. 

“I’m glad,” he murmured, lips turning upward in that rare smile. Steve wound his arm tighter around him. 

“Me too.” They stood there for a long time, watching the sky. Reflecting on the strange whirlwind of Rocket’s residency with them. The absurdity and the amusement. They held each other up on the roof, and for one silly, small moment everything was right and good and lovely. 

“I’ve been thinking,” Bucky broke the silence as they turned to go back inside, their hands held together, “we did alright with a plant and a raccoon. Does this mean we can get a dog?” Steve laughed, shaking his head and kissed Bucky’s hand. 

“Absolutely not.”


End file.
